Auroran Economy
The Communion of Worlds has a computer-based, primarily intellectual economy which first originated in its current form on the planet Berharap. The economy is a very open system, but nevertheless has a significant degree of indirect central control. Economic Sectors The Auroran economy is split into four main sectors; extraction (farming and mining), industrial (manufacturing), services (management and retail) and intellectual (science and technology); these can be used to show how the Auroran economy has evolved over time, right from the start of Auroran civilisation. After the Agricultural Revolution, Auroran civilisation began as an extraction economy, as almost all of the labour force was devoted to activities such as farming, hunting, fishing, and later mining; only a marginally small number of workers were devoted to industry, an even smaller number to services, and a negligible few to study and innovation. This continued for many thousands of years until the Industrial Revolution, in which the number of manufacturing workers exceeded the number of farming and mining workers; the number of services and intellectual workers also increased slightly, but intellectual workers remained marginal. Next was the much less noticeable Services Revolution, in which the number of extraction workers now fell to just a few percent of the total labour force, while the number of industrial workers also went down, meaning the majority of the labour force now worked in the services sector; for the first time, the intellectual sector began to employ more people than the agricultural sector. Finally, there was the Intellectual Revolution, in which employment figures became a 'mirror image' of those before the Industrial Revolution; almost all of the labour force was devoted to study and innovation, only a marginally small number of workers were devoted to services, an even smaller number to industry, and a negligible few to farming and mining. It should be noted that the above revolutions were not absolute throughout all of Auroran civilisation, but each happened in different places over several centuries; for example, a precious few regions still had industrial economies when the first intellectual economies emerged. Today, the Communion of Worlds as a whole can generally be considered an intellectual economy. Allocation Economy The traditional capitalist, monetary-based economy was phased out of Auroran civilisation in 452AE, after the Pergesseran War. This completed the takeover of the new allocation based economy which first emerged on Berharap in 304AE, and would eventually become the economy of the Communion of Worlds. Capitalism effectively uses the interactions between individuals, in the form of financial transactions, as a vast data processing network which uses market forces to control the allocation of resources in a very efficient manner. An allocation economy instead uses advanced distributed computer networks to the same end, except with a much higher processing power than could be achieved through simple market transactions; the allocation economy is therefore more efficient than a capitalist economy. An allocation economy can more easily control supply and demand, as well as identify the best investements and predict returns more reliably than financial markets. The combination of these two features allows for a form of economic expansion of which the best parallel in a capitalist economy would be to drive economic growth using interest free credit; the allocation system ensures that the return on this credit is higher than the original investment via contractual obligations, so inflation is zero. The allocation system then absorbs an amount of return equal to the amount of investment applied then destroys it. It is the above scheme that eventually resulted in the elimination of poverty during the expansion epoch, despite the rapid spread of Auroran colonists to undeveloped planets. Air, water, food, shelter, security, medical care, communication, transport and even entertainment are all considered fundamental rights provided for free by the Central Commission. This is how the whole Auroran race has remained under the Communion of Worlds, without fracturing, for so many centuries. Energy Accounting The Communion of Worlds measures the value of a product or service in terms of energy, rather than any monetary figure; this energy-value is equivalent to the total energy required in the production, transportation, etcetera, of the product. The energy-value of a product does not change once it has been produced, unless more energy is later expended in, for example, moving the product; there is no inflation or fluctuations in price, and the amount of energy produced by the economy always exactly equals the amount of energy consumed. Category:Articles by User:Mr.Robbo Category:Economy Category:Aurorans Category:Communion of Worlds